CultureJam – Overwatch Retribution

Brian (Lv303) and Blair (Lv3) played the new Overwatch event together.

It’s been 8 years since Venice. What happened in Venice? Play the new Retribution game mode in Overwatch to find out.

Brian, an old hat at Overwatch and a Moira main, and Blair, a new player who doesn’t know what a main is, both played Retribution. What did they think? Find out below.

Brian

So here’s the thing. Last year’s Uprising event was awesome. At the time, I was about 6 months into Overwatch, playing a lot of Mercy and Soldier 76. I got super good with Mercy, and generally had a time learning Torbjorn and remembering why I never played Reinhardt. Also Tracer was there.

This year we have Retribution, which is cooler for at least eight reasons. Blackwatch is just objectively cooler, plus it’s a totally new map, plus there’s an actual cinematic opening, and also I’m a Moira main now so I can still wreck.

I love the advancement of lore, especially since Blizzard are still keeping us chomping at the bit waiting for more. They’ve built this mythos around almost no information, which is impressive enough as it is, but we need more story based stuff like this, and preferably not just once a year.

As a mid-Platinum player, I waltzed through Normal, was comfortable in Hard, and have gotten to the final battle in Expert only to have some jerk run off and die at the end no fewer than 4 times. It’s an unwinnable fight, guys. That’s the whole goddam point. I don’t care if you’ve almost got Ult. GET ON THE DAMN SHIP.

The new skins are also gorgeous. Black, silver, and red on my awesome DPS support main? Yes please. Especially with that sweet golden manicure of mine.

Retribution is a step forward. I just hope Overwatch doesn’t get Overshadowed by games like Fortnite before it reaches its full potential.

Blair is just a lil baby noob, so let’s see what he thinks of the new mode. Ignore any parts where he says I yelled at him because it’s the truth and the truth is irrelevant.

Blair

I’ll be upfront, I’m an Overwatch N00b.

I played it one weekend when it was free, adored it, didn’t want to fall in love with an online game, and didn’t touch it again until a month ago. This is because, one fateful day at Armageddon, I played a round with fellow writer Brian while having a go on the HP Omen setup.

A fan was born.

So I have been dabbling with Overmatch between other games, fanboying over Tracer and D.Va, dabbling with game modes, and just loving being terrible at such a fun game. Then the ominous sounding Retribution event came along. This can seem intimidating to a n00b who knows there have been numerous events, but haven’t witnessed them first hand.

The good news is it’s not as intimidating as it seems.

Instead it turned out to be a whole bunch of fun, adding some new variety to the game. The most notable change for a newbie is that it is PvE as opposed to PvP. It brings in a story mission that has you and your cohorts, taking out waves of enemies while trying to escape from Venice.

There is a light story there, which I won’t spoil, but the general gist is that the Blackwatch team need to escape, and are being hunted by many disposable enemies. Canonically the level involves McCree, Reaper, Genji, and Moira, so in its standard mode each character can be picked by one person, meaning the mode has been optimised to balance characters.

Arcade modes throw the specific characters out the window, so dropping in as D.Va with other random characters makes the mode easy to overpower, and all kinds of fun. Pretty much what I have come to expect from the awesomeness that Overwatch provides.

Retribution is more Overwatch goodness, even for a n00b, it’s just so much fun. So, if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to go back and keep being bad at Overwatch.

Originally from Ireland, Brian moved to Wellington in 2014, and is still pretty sure that it was a good idea. He is convinced that Fallout is the greatest game series of all time, and believes the same about Bioshock, Pokemon, and The Elder Scrolls. This is in no way a contradiction.